Let's Talk About Death, Baby

I almost died eight years ago.

I had undergone about four months of chemotherapy for an aggressive form of germ cell cancer in my chest. In the spring of 2004, I went in to get the last of the tumor taken out, and ended up in the ICU with a lung infection, because I had been smoking pot for months on end with no intention of stopping. They took 60% of my left lung out, and replaced my pericardium. My throat was damaged by the ventilator and it still hasn't returned to normal. Thanks to the massive surgical scars, I ended up hooked on opiates and benzos, which led to some serious relationship issues and one active suicide attempt- several passive ones. All of that is fine; it falls under "Stuff happens then other stuff happens," which is one of my wise sayings and slogans. I'm a better person for all of it.

Here's what's not fine: How people treat you when they think you might die. I'm writing about this now because I'm in a hospital room with my sister, who has ALS. She isn't going to get better and the only question is how quickly it gets worse. I'm watching her deal with my parents, a neverending parade of doctors, nurses and social workers, and the implied question of "When are you leaving the hospital for wherever it is you're going to die?" I have power of attorney in these matters, and what's amazing is I'm ready for all this. I've seen it from the other side, even though I managed to live through it. I know what it's like when someone tries to smile at you when they really want to cry. I know how hollow pleasantries can sound, and I know what feigned hope sounds like. So if you ever find yourself bedside of someone whose time can be measured in days rather than years, I have some handy dandy tips for you.

-Put your best face forward. Pretending there is no illness is patronizing and insulting; pretending there's nothing but illness is just depressing. If you can't hide your shock, anger, or sadness, do not enter the room. A critically ill person has enough to worry about without you guilt tripping them with "I'm sad and it's because of you." I know you don't mean it that way. It doesn't matter. Just don't do it. Treat them like a normal human being. You can acknowledge the illness without saying anything, but you can acknowledge the person behind it, too. If it's someone you don't know well enough to do that, well, they probably don't need to see you either.

-Humor. My father and I are sick bastards and the only good way to address nasty shit like a feeding tube in a stomach is to ask "If I blow in that, will you fart?" We've been exchanging our favorite South Park and Simpsons lines. It hurts her physically to laugh, but it hurts her more to watch people get all miserable. Dad and I just got done discussing American Idol, a show I enjoy despite the wishes of literally everyone I have ever known. And it was funny. It's not that hard to keep it light, people.

-Grieve at the right time. We're human beings and some of us have the need to express grief. In my case, I just get ahead of the game and grieve for someone as soon as it seems fitting. I've known a few people who lived most of their lives on a direct route to death, and for those people, I never saw the point in waiting. If someone has made up their mind to be unhappy until they die, well then, they get to do that. But they're just grieving for themselves, and it's not my responsibility to pile onto that. On the other side, everybody who's got a terminal illness is going to die and people are aware of that, but there is absolutely no rule that says we can't wait till after you're gone before we turn into whiny little bitches. Cause if by some stroke of luck you pull through, then you get to live the rest of their lives knowing that your family and friends are a bunch of needy emo tools who can't wait to make your death about them.

So, to sum up: A slow painful death only gets miserable because of the survivors. Put yourself aside and don't make the sick and dying among you feel your pain in addition to their own. Thank you.

Terrible TV Recap: American Idol Top 7 results

Typing this up as I watch the last 10 minutes of the results show, because I'm a little shocked. Tonight's bottom 3 of Joshua, Jessica, and Elise had the three best performances of last night, full stop. As much as I love Hollie, it's insane that she was not in danger. Phillip sucked, but he pretty much always does the same thing. I'm a little surprised that he's still pulling votes. Anyway, Joshua and Elise are also safe, and the Chosen One herself is singing for survival. Steven already said they'd be using their save tonight- thanks for killing the drama- and Jennifer interrupts Jessica's performance to say, yeah, we're saving her. Randy says she's one of the best singers in America ever, which is kind of what someone who doesn't listen to music would say. So... Double elimination next week? Elise and Hollie. That was easy. It'd be kind of amazing if people ignore Jessica again, though. Well at least we got the indelible image of Colton blissfully resting his head on Phillips's lap while Phillip stroked his hair and sang Pink to him. That was a highlight of my life.

ETA: Doesn't Colton look like the belle of the ball?

Terrible TV Live Blog: American Idol Top 7

Tonight's theme is songs from the 2010's. Awesome, three years' worth of some of the worst music ever made, arranged and performed with all the artistic sensibility of "Glee". Let's get this over with.

Thoughts on the first week of baseball

Since you'd have to be pretty dumb to draw any conclusions from the games themselves, I'm gonna stick to things that will last all season: the uniforms.

Ok, whoever it was in the Orioles' front office that made this decision gets an A+. While the team itself might stink, those home and home-alternate caps with the white front panel are delightfully old-school and hearken back to a day when the team didn't suck. I caught a good bit of an Orioles game this past weekend, and I couldn't stop staring at the caps and beaming. Fan fucking tastic. Now they have one of the best parks AND some of the best uniforms in baseball. All that's missing is the dudes who play in them.

Speaking of old-school uniforms that made me inexplicably happy...

There's Jose Bautista sporting the new Blue Jays duds, doing away with the ultramodern uniforms of the past decade or so. I didn't hate the ones they had, but when your team wins two World Series with a classic and distinctive look, why mess with it? The maple leaf addition doesn't hurt anything, and now they look like a baseball team again. I think these might be my new favorite uni's in baseball. They reflect the franchise's identity, just like the Orioles' new ones, which is why I hope they stay awhile. Nice work Blue Jays people.

My old favorite uni's are no more, which will send me to eBay one day this summer to clean up on vintage Luis Castillo and Livan Hernandez gear. It'll go nicely with the T.O. Eagles jersey I bought for a song in 2005. Anyway, maybe I'm the only person on earth who thinks black and teal is a proper uniform combination, but I loved loved loved the old Marlins getups. What they replaced them with has been the subject of some derision, and while I wish they hadn't changed a thing, these really aren't as bad as they seemed at first glance:

They're just black and orange. The powder blue and yellow don't factor in as much as I thought they would at first, which would have turned them into some technicolor barfbag. It's something I can get used to, and I'll never stop rooting for the Marlins, because of what happened in 2003. Still, if they wanted to take part in 150 or so throwback uni nights a year, I would be cool with that.

As long as I'm talking Marlins, I want to put in my two cents on the Ozzie Guillen situation. As a White Sox fan who came to love baseball in the late '80's and early '90's, Ozzie-- along with Robin, the Big Hurt, Ray Durham, Bobby Thigpen, and Blackjack-- is among my all time favorite baseball people. When he would speak off the cuff to the media during his time as manager of The Good Guys, I would gaze adoringly at the screen and think that if one day I should ever become the manager of a baseball team, I would approach it the exact same way as Ozzie: brutally honest, but never all that seriously. He reflected a lot of my values as both a manager and as a human being: consider yourself fortunate that you play a child's game for millions of dollars, don't forget to have fun, and play your ass off. So, as a sports bigamist (terminology courtesy of Bill Simmons), if Ozzie had to leave the South Side, I was happy it was for my second team.

Now I want them to fire him.

I think in a lot of ways, sensitivity has gone too far. People who think, then type, ask "Could anyone possibly be offended?" instead of "Is anyone offended?" and that annoys me. It leads to ridiculous non-apologies ("I'm sorry if anyone was offended by...") which quite literally means "I don't regret what I did. I just regret the way you reacted to it." But in Ozzie's case, I have to side with the easily-offended, culturally-sensitive crowd. For those who don't know, Ozzie spoke of his love and respect for Fidel Castro recently, in an interview with Time magazine. Ozzie manages a baseball team in Miami, Florida, a city with the largest population of Cuban expatriates (OK, let's call them what they are-- refugees) of anywhere in the USA. These people do not like Fidel Castro very much. Ozzie knows all of this, since he's been a coach with the Marlins before, and I am led to believe he considers Miami home. So... Why would this come out of his mouth? To me, there are only three possibilities.

1) Thoughtlessness. Ozzie knows that people expect him to say outrageous things, and he forgot he no longer works in Chicago, a city that will basically let you get away with anything. He now works in Miami, a city with a large population of Cubans and Dominicans, among others, who might just hold him accountable.

2) Martyrdom. Ozzie knows that if the media focuses on him, they'll leave his players alone. This strategy worked to perfection in 2005. Seriously, name a player from the 2005 White Sox. If you're not a Sox fan, it's a toughie.

3) Egomania. Ozzie knows that the media focuses on inflammatory statements, and decided to provide one because he had just watched ESPN for an hour and nobody mentioned his name on-air.

I think it's a combination of 2 and 3. Ozzie's not an idiot; I mean, he managed a team to a World Series title when they were far from the best team in baseball. The man's brain works and I will not dispute that. But if he's going to keep ripping the Cubans and others who live in Miami, it might suck for a team that needs to draw people to their new stadium. That's why, if I'm anyone in the Marlins' front office, I push to fire Ozzie with cause. I mean, if saying "I love Fidel Castro" isn't cause for firing someone who works in Miami, then I don't live in a world of reason.

Terrible TV recap: Idol & Grey's Anatomy, 4/5/12

Idol: Deandre went home, and Kelly Pickler and some boy band called "The Wanted" performed. It was all around terrible. I picked the bottom 3 correctly, but in all fairness it was not a tough call after last night. I've gotta say, America has done well with the voting so far. Shannon, Erika, Heejun, and Deandre were all fine choices to send home. Vote For The Worst may have to just give up on this season, because everyone with any amount of Worsterness has been singled out and kicked off. I strongly encourage that site to pick Phillip Phillips next, because a backlash of some kind is needed to knock that joker off the show before it's too late.

Grey's: Turns out there's a ton of sexy bisexual or lesbian women working at Seattle Grace. I found that out when Arizona was naming all the people she hooked up with at the hospital, because Callie suddenly cared a lot. Whatever, you got to bang McSteamy for longer than anyone else, even longer than Lexie. You don't get to have your cake and eat it too. Luckily she realizes this and is super-nice to Arizona at the end, as it should be. Meanwhile, we don't even find out who Owen cheated on Cristina with, which annoyed me greatly. Of course Cristina is shutting down emotionally and not talking to anyone. SHE'S CRISTINA. I just need details! I don't need to see scene after scene of Cristina not talking to Owen; it's implied that's already happened. Then Lexie asks Derek for advice on how to deal with the Mark/ Julia thing, and it looks like Lexie and Mark will get back together before the season ends. Good, they broke up for stupid reasons and they're both hot. It should definitely happen. Also, there was a lion on the show. It mauled people, all of whom survived. The awesomely funny part was toward the end, when the lion's owner blamed her boyfriend for pissing off her pet lion, leading to the inevitable lion-on-the-streets-of-Seattle good times. Nothing beats crazy people. I know from experience.

Terrible TV Live Blog: American Idol Top 8

In honor of 80's week, this live blog is brought to you by the magic of the VCR. That's right, Idol on VHS. Because sometimes you don't have a DVR and you have something of actual import to do on a Wednesday night. Let's see what our beloved and boring top 8 bring to the table tonight.

2012 MLB Preview, Part VII: Playoffs and fun stuff

So 2012 will be the debut of the second wild card. Since half the people who write about baseball do it just to bash Bud Selig and all his ideas, I can already see how this will turn into a bonfire of scorn stoked by the kindling of ridicule. Starting with the AL, we'll knock out the rest of this after the jump.

2012 MLB Preview: Part VI

No TV post tonight, because there's no new Grey's Anatomy and I don't think I have anything to say about an Idol results show that isn't self-evident. So instead, I'll wrap up the division predictions today with The Only Division That Matters If You Work In Sports Media, aka the AL East.

Terrible TV Live Blog: American Idol Top 9

Coming to you live from a basement, it's the debut of RtH's Terrible TV Live Blog series! We'll hopefully get through the next 120 minutes without plunging into the depths of suicidal depression. Probably. Since tonight's Idol night, I really can't say for sure.

Tonight's the Top 9 performance night of American Idol, and the theme is "Your Own Personal Idol." Since I've actually read the entire list of songs Idol has the rights to, this is more like "You sing what we tell you to sing!" night, just like every other week on this show. And since the clear frontrunners are two young, attractive women with fantastic voices, we're just 9 weeks away from crowning another white guy with a guitar champion. This'll be a long one, so let's go!

2012 MLB Preview: Part V

We're down to the two best divisions in baseball. They're also the two where no prediction is any better than throwing ducks at balloons. So let's see if nothing is as it seems in the NL East, after the jump.

2012 MLB Preview: Part IV

This post is being written as the regular season officially gets underway. Seattle takes on Oakland in Japan, starting at 5 AM my time. Seems like I should have checked to see if MLB blocked internet radio broadcasts from Seattle and Oakland before setting my alarm for 4:45. If I were in England I'd be able to listen to the BBC and hear dudes with English accents talking about an American game being played in Japan, which would have been great in a "Death Row Records week on American Idol" kind of way. Oh well, I'll settle for keeping an eye on the GameCast. The division that will have a team alone in first place in about 3 hours, after the jump.

2012 MLB Preview: Part III

With the first two divisions behind us, every entry from here on out will include at least one possible World Series winner. The NL Central's secrets are exposed, after the jump.

2012 MLB Preview: Part II

(Later this week, there will be at least one post on mental illness and what I do about it, and at least three posts on terrible television, which I assume will end up as this blog's focus. For now, more baseball after the jump. 'Cause baseball.)

Quote of the Day- March 24, 2012

"I can't stop chattering my teeth. Drinking helps, but then I can't stop screaming."

-My Person (In the Grey's Anatomy sense)

2012 MLB Preview: Part I

So, instead of jumping into a discussion on social issues, politics, or the future of our planet, I'm gonna start off writing about something that really matters. BASEBALL. One division at a time, from worst to best until we've crowned a World Series champion in March. We'll get to Frothy and the Republibot later. Sound good? AL Central, after the jump.